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‘A messy compromise’ – newspaper reaction to the NHS Future Forum report and other health stories

Our round-up of the health headlines on Tuesday 14 June.

The Government will rubber stamp 99% of the recommendations for health bill reform published in yesterday's report by Professor Steve Field's NHS Future Forum, says the Independent. Although interestingly an article penned by prime minister David Cameron for The Daily Mail indicates hospital doctors and nurses will be included in commissioning consortia, whereas the NHS Future Forum report had warned such a move could represent 'tokenism'.

The Future Forum report gets no such backing from The Telegraph, with the paper arguing Professor Field's recommendations have left the health bill 'in ruins' and scuppered NHS reform. Meanwhile, The Guardian labels the NHS Future Forum report 'a messy compromise' that prioritises patching up coalition differences over coherency.

Amid anger in the Tory back-benches that the Lib-Dems are claiming victory over Cameron's u-turn on NHS reforms, health secretary Andrew Lansley has privately issued a 'stick with me' plea to Conservative MPs and reassured them that the 'Tory red lines' in the bill are safe, says the Guardian.

While LMC leaders threw out calls for the GPC to consider strike action over pension reforms last week, today the BMA admits that strikes by hospital doctors are 'a possibility', reports The Times (behind paywall). The BMA is angry that ministers have refused to meet doctors to discuss the reforms.

Senior scientists are warning that moves by leading drug companies to abandon research into brain disorders and antidepressant drugs will cause huge financial costs and lead to a risk of litigation, according to the Guardian.

Cardiology experts claim that a new anti-clotting drug could reduce the risk of dying and recurrent heart attack, the Daily Mail reports. Delegates at yesterday's British Cardiovascular Society conference heard that ticagrelor works better than standard treatments and could cut one in five deaths following heart attack.

Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know, and we'll update the digest throughout the day...

Daily Digest